The present invention relates to digital signal processing, and more particularly to a system and related method for processing digital signals in avionic systems.
With the onset of digital processing in avionics systems, such as airborne radar systems, the mission capabilities of the fighter and surveillance aircraft was radically altered, making it possible to engage and defeat enemy targets at unheard of distances and at unheard of speeds. In the years that followed, the realm of digital processing expanded as new sensors were brought on board the aircraft bringing valuable new information to the pilot. However, as threat technology grew more sophisticated, systems became more complex and more numerous, and pilots found it difficult to make sense of the volume of incoming data. In fact, the pilot became the point of integration for dozens of partially programmable computers attached to a whole array of discrete sensors.
Prior to the present invention, the failure of a component of a system associated with one of the sensors, caused the entire system associated with that sensor to become disabled, resulting in a loss in combat capability. Heretofore, the software for such individual systems was difficult to modify in order to handle the emergence of new or different types of threats. Each addition of a different type of sensor to the aircraft, required an additional dedicated signal processing system. Thus, such prior systems were not only inflexible and difficult to maintain, but also, were rapidly becoming impractical, in that the pilots task was becoming more unmanageable.